John Wycliffe, William Frederick Yeames, 1835-1918, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Back in about AD 613 Columbanus, the Irish monk, had written to Pope Boniface IV of dissension, corruption, and decadence in the church. ‘Watch’, he warned, ‘for the sea is in...
By CHE, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Image: Edinburgh Castle, where five reformers were burned in 1538 on Castle Hill. ‘One day, as the Lord of Lauriston [John Erskine]… was reading the New Testament to David Straton in a certain quiet place in the fields, as God had...
By CHE, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Image: A friar preaching during the Reformation The horrific death of Patrick Hamilton in 1528 shook those at the University of St Andrews, particularly at the College of St Leonard’s. Both the Rector Gavin Logie, and the Vice-Abbot,...
John Scougal(Life time: 1730), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons The smell of burning flesh filled the air. It had taken four attempts to get the fire blazing outside St Salvator’s Chapel, even with gunpowder. The large crowd pressed in to see the victim suffer a...
By CHE, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Image: John Knox preaching from a pulpit, museum at St Andrews, Photo: Paul James-Griffiths When John Knox cried out to God in passionate prayer, ‘Give me Scotland, else I die’, he was revealing his heart to us. Here was a man whose...
By CHE, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Image: John Knox stained-glass window in the Presbytery Hall, Edinburgh Theological Seminary, Photo: Paul James-Griffiths After John Knox had been freed from French slavery he ended up in London in 1549. The Reformation was already...
Paul Landowski, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Image: The Reformation Wall in Geneva depicting, left to right: Farel, Calvin, Beza and Knox. During Mary Tudor’s reign of terror, in which almost 300 reformers were rounded up and burnt at the stake, Knox fled to...
By CHE, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Image: George Wishart, from the Presbytery Hall, Edinburgh Theological Seminary, Photo: Paul James-Griffiths Following the deaths of the Glasgow martyrs in 1539, the council of the cruel hunted for more victims, finding six more that...
By CHE, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Image: The Cowgate, Edinburgh. In this street Alexander Alane/Alesius was born (1500) With tears and deep anguish Alexander Alane witnessed the agonising six-hour burning of his friend Patrick Hamilton by the council of the cruel. As...
By CHE, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Edinburgh Castle: taken from Craigmillar Castle by Paul James-Griffiths. Adam Wallace was burnt for his faith in Christ in 1547 on Castle Hill, just below Edinburgh Castle. Following the death of George Wishart, the next recorded...